Good user experience (UX) doesn’t just happen by chance—it’s carefully designed, allowing users to navigate your website quickly and easily.
Does your website make customers want to stay on the site long enough to explore more? If it doesn’t, it’s a sign you should focus on making your website easier to use. That way, customers can achieve their goals faster. Shift your focus back to UX.
If you’re redesigning your website, make sure your changes are well thought out, specific to your brand, and provide new opportunities for generating traffic and converting prospects into customers.
Take time and handle a redesign carefully. If a redesign isn’t managed properly it can backfire, turning potential visitors away.
A thoughtful design will welcome visitors in and encourage their interest in your company. Then, they’re inspired to take action, generating more leads or selling more products.
Communication is key. For anyone who will be involved in the entire redesign process, start to finish, we’ve shared a few ideas to help effectively guide the process and result in higher conversion rates.
Start by Researching Your Audience
Let’s talk about a couple of things you’ll want to take into consideration that’ll help you plan a solid redesign.
It takes around 50 milliseconds for visitors to form a first impression or leave your website. This means that you need to get to know your audience, so you can appeal to them from the moment they arrive.
Knowing your audience through research helps you understand what design changes are worth consideration, when the ultimate goal is to attract and retain more customers.
Next, you should look at case studies. Both external and internal sources will help you better understand the pros and cons of design changes, and how they affected key areas.
Don’t forget to research your existing audience, too. This step is critical. Don’t rely on vanity metrics like the number of page views without also accounting for bounce rates.
Get to know your audience by reading content and internal marketing documents. This will help you find their pain points, and learn more about how they’re using your site.
Analyze Your Existing Design
When you’re considering designing a new website, it’s common to recognize that some elements work well as-is and won’t need to be changed.
If you’re considering a total overhaul, this could be a sign that what’s currently on your site isn’t working well. It could also mean that there’s an opportunity for your website to make some major improvements.
No matter what changes need to be made, it’s important to understand exactly what parts are and aren’t working well. That way, you can identify what you should keep and get rid of before moving forward with your design.
38% of visitors will not engage with your website if the layout is unattractive. Make sure that your website is clear and concise, with key information displayed clearly. When you do this, it makes your website easier to navigate and encourages visitors to stay longer. If you are looking for a unique and professionally designed website, please give us a call.
Communicate Your Brand Clearly
Your logo, colors, and typeface are the visual representation of your business.
They all need to work well together, be legible from a distance, and communicate what your brand is about. Seems easy, doesn’t it? Don’t forget that there are many details that contribute to website design.
When you’re choosing what colors to use for your website, it’s important to use colors that communicate your brand effectively. Your brand colors help people recognize your company and your products quickly.
If you want to simplify your website design, start here:
- Any information you share should educate and inform your visitors. Make it easy to read, absorb, and implement your messages. If website elements don’t communicate something important, leave them out.
- It doesn’t take a lot of text to capture a reader’s attention. In fact, images can be much more effective when leading someone to take action. Balance your use of text and images when designing your landing pages.
- Headlines should be short and sweet. The first few words should immediately describe a product’s function. Instead of stating your benefit, use a single call to action verb that sums up the benefits you offer.
Less Is More
White space in web design serves several purposes. It helps create a visual hierarchy, serving an important function in visual design. White space also provides balance, and directs attention to specific elements. That helps increase usability and readability of your website.
Unfortunately, most websites (especially e-commerce websites) try to cram as much information into a small space as possible.
Web design is all about making things pleasing to the eye. Information architect Shaowen Bardzell conducted a study of website aesthetics and found that visual complexity detracts from a website’s visual appeal.
When you overwhelm your audience with too much information in too small of a space, you’ll drive them away from your website—and that’s the last thing you want to do. Careful balance helps you tailor a website design for a better user experience.
Meeting Expectations
When potential customers happen across your website or click on a link to it, they’ll be assessing whether or not your website meets their expectations. If your site has weaknesses, you could be losing business before you even get to interact with potential customers.
Most visitor expectations are based on perceived website quality, pleasing visuals, and a speedy load time.
In e-commerce, psychology plays a significant role in whether or not a visitor makes a purchase. How you present your website can make a big difference in whether a visitor thinks and feels positively about your product.
Higher priced products always come with higher expectations. When potential customers already know there’s a greater cost associated with the purchase they’re considering, they’ll expect top notch performance from your website—like an immaculate appearance, fast speeds, and seamless performance.
Regardless of what product you’re selling, every element of a website needs to work in harmony to meet visitor expectations. Even if your products’ price points are low, don’t assume your visitors have low expectations of your website’s appearance and performance.
Quality visuals and website performance help boost your product and overall business appeal, regardless of the cost of your products.
Retain Originality
An original website design helps your business stand out, rather than simply mimicking your competitors’ designs.
When you lean into the originality of your business with your website design, it helps distinguish your business from competitors in the minds of potential customers. If you were to copy and paste a design similar to a mainstream competitor, you could accidentally set your visitors up for an unconscious bias against your website from their first interaction.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take pattern recognition into consideration, though.
Each niche has its own set of patterns. For example, a website for a freelance writer should be different from an e-commerce store’s website.
Visitors to your website expect to see certain images and text in different areas. Those expectations are based on what they’ve seen before on other websites within the same niche.
Trying to deviate from common patterns can make your users feel uncomfortable, leading to a drop in your conversion rate.
Website navigation is another good example of these recognized patterns. It’s important that a website clearly communicates the purpose and content of each page. Good navigation is vital to keeping visitors on individual pages.
Last but not least: Make your website intuitive to navigate. Viewers are more likely to remain on your website for longer when they don’t feel lost or confused trying to browse content.
Website Design for a Better User Experience – Conclusion
To recap, here are the main aspects to pay attention to if you want to simplify your website design for a better user experience:
- Research your audience and learn what they like or are accustomed to. Find out their pain points.
- Analyze your existing design. Keep the elements that work and remove those that don’t.
- Communicate your brand clearly. Each element on your website should reflect what your brand is about.
- Use white space and don’t cram information together in one place.
- Meet users’ expectations. A higher price point or a higher product quality result in higher expectations.
- Be original—but don’t deviate from common patterns.
Simplicity and good design aren’t mutually exclusive.
Simplicity is one of the most critical considerations when designing or redesigning a website. It helps make your content easy to read, and to find. This in turn helps search engines rank your site more easily
If you need help to improve your current website, or start a new website project, get in touch with us, or check out our other responsive web design services.
How to Simplify Your Website Design for a Better User Experience FAQs
1. What does “simplifying website design” actually mean?
Simplifying your website design means removing anything that distracts from the core message or purpose of your site. This includes cluttered layouts, confusing navigation, or excessive text. A simplified site is easier to understand, easier to navigate, and more enjoyable to use—ultimately creating a better experience for your visitors.
2. Why is simplicity important for user experience (UX)?
Simplicity makes your website easier to use, which directly affects whether people stay on your site or leave. Visitors are more likely to take action—whether it’s making a purchase, submitting a form, or exploring your content—when they don’t feel overwhelmed. A clean design also allows key messages and visuals to stand out.
3. How do I know if my website needs a redesign for better UX?
If your bounce rates are high, conversion rates are low, or visitors don’t stick around for long, your site may not be meeting their needs. Signs like slow load times, unclear branding, or poor mobile performance also point to a need for improvement. A redesign gives you a chance to reassess and realign your website with your users’ expectations.
4. What are the first steps to take when redesigning for user experience?
Start with audience research. Understand who’s visiting your site and what they’re trying to do. Analyze what’s working (and what’s not) on your current site, then use that data to guide your design decisions. Simplify where possible, focus on clarity, and don’t underestimate the power of white space and strong branding.
5. How does website design affect how users perceive my business?
Visitors judge your business within seconds of landing on your site. A cluttered or outdated design may send the wrong message, even if your product or service is high-quality. On the other hand, a clean, thoughtful design builds trust, encourages exploration, and reflects the professionalism of your brand.
6. How can Clio help with website design for a better user experience?
At Clio, we specialize in creating websites that don’t just look great—they work beautifully, too. We help simplify your design, clarify your messaging, and align your website with what your audience really wants. Whether you need a full redesign or a few key updates, our goal is to build a website that keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to take action. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help with your project.
7. Does simplifying my design impact search engine optimization (SEO)?
Yes—but in a good way. A simplified website often loads faster, is easier to navigate, and is more accessible, which all contribute positively to SEO. When your content is clear and your site is easy to explore, search engines (and your visitors) are more likely to stick around.
